PROCTOR-TOWNSEND  -  INTRODUCTION

Several years before the time of this writing, I ran across a fellow riding a beautiful old Proctor, a relatively little known, vintage road bicycle, built by a young man, in a small shop in Edmonton, Alberta.  Since that time, I have hoped that I might have a chance to buy the bicycle, however; the owner had purchased the bicycle new, and had attached a sentimental value to it.  Quite frankly, I don't blame him for doing so.  Unlike many people I have met who claim sentimental attachment, Lud (short for Ludwick) rode the Proctor on a regular basis - as his foul weather bike!  Now, if the Proctor was his "Junk Bike", can you imagine what the good bikes, in his collection, look like?  The word Cinelli, or mint, can be used to describe most of his other bikes.  His focus is performance, and he likes almost all genders of bicycles.  Lud is an interesting guy and I enjoy listening to his interpretation of this or that, when discussing bikes.

Ludwick's Proctor, long avoided my efforts to coax it into The Old Shed and I finally put the idea, of purchasing the bicycle, out of my mind.  Needless to say, I was still hoping to find another old Proctor one day.  It would come as a surprise, even to me, that I would be willing to settle for a Proctor-Townsend instead.  In fact, up until recently, I did not know that the P-T even existed.  The question, that must come to mind, is are we talking about two different bicycle makes?  Yes and no.

When I started this feature article, I had one Proctor-Townsend.  A short while later, Lud called and offered his Proctor frame set, in even trade for an early eighties Marinoni Special frame set that I had picked up, as a complete bike, for twenty dollars at a yard sale.  Needless to say, and considering that, I have a gorgeous very early Marinoni Quebec in The Old Shed already, I went for the deal.  And that is not all...

A couple of weeks after that, I had to go to Calgary, in Alberta.  Wouldn't you know it , while there, another Proctor came my way, and what a gorgeous piece it was.  This blue and yellow wonder looked just great, fit like a glove and rode really well.  I seriously thought about keeping the blue Proctor, but decided against it.  I just could not justify having three bikes of the same basic make.  But, I still have the Proctor and the Proctor-Townsend.

Proctor bicycles were hand made in Edmonton, the capital of the Province of Alberta, Canada.  The builder, Brad Proctor, appeared to care about his work, as is indicated by the clean construction, coupled with the choice of quality materials, and components, for each build.

While building bikes on his own, Brad worked for High Country Cycles, a local bike shop, owned by Robert Townsend.  It was a few years, after Brad started building bikes, that he partnered up with Bob Townsend, and the Proctor-Townsend bicycle was born.  Again, the P-T bicycles were of good quality, well built and usually fitted with top dog components.  And, I might add that my uglied-up Proctor-Townsend, is the bike that sees the most ride time, in my humble collection.

NEXT - FINDING THE PROCTOR-TOWNSEND